Skip to content
RichseenAtlasAtlasSign in

The no-hair result

node

The statement that a stationary black hole in general relativity is completely specified by three numbers - mass, angular momentum and electric charge - and that everything else about whatever formed it is erased. A star has composition, rotation profile, magnetic topology and history; the hole it becomes has, at most, three parameters. The name comes from John Wheeler's remark that black holes have no hair. Astrophysically the charge is negligible, so two numbers remain. The claim is testable: a newly merged black hole rings down through a set of damped oscillations whose frequencies and decay times are fixed by mass and spin alone, so measuring more than one such mode overdetermines the system and tests the theorem directly. It is also the origin of the information problem, because if the exterior really retains nothing of what fell in, and the hole then evaporates, the history appears to be gone. Not a place on Earth.

A node is not a place. Drawing it on a map would assert something about the world that no stored fact supports.

Read in · 1

Evidence · 2
Timeline

No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.

Connections · 1
Assembled narrative · 1

An assembled narrative is available for this object.

Observed changes · 0

No public Signals are attached to this object. Signals show what changed and when it was observed — never a direction or a rank.

Actions

Read the assembled narrativeContinue in StudioOpen TwinTwin does not start a decision from this kind of object.ShareSaveSaved objects are part of the authenticated projection, which is declared and not yet built.

/atlas?object=CONCEPT_NO_HAIR_THEOREM